Basic Factors of Study of Social MovementsKertas kerja ini akan menganalisis hubungan kuasa yang terlibat dalam penyelidikan gerakan sosial, meneroka amalan epistemologi alternatif

Jurnal Fikrah Jilid 8 05-34, 2017

Available at : www.jurnalfikrah.org ISSN 1511-1113

© 2017 Pusat Pemikiran dan Kefahaman Islam (CITU)

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Basic Factors of Study of Social Movements

Nurhayati Burroughs

Forensic Medicine & Clinical Toxicology Department, Faculty of

Medicine, Alexandria University, Egypt

Email: bnurhayati [email protected]

ABSTRAK

Kertas kerja ini akan menganalisis hubungan kuasa yang terlibat dalam

penyelidikan gerakan sosial, meneroka amalan epistemologi alternatif

yang menentang dan menggulingkan konvensyen akademik bagi

mewujudkan kaedah baru mengetahui. Saya akan mengkritik

pengeluaran pengetahuan yang bertujuan untuk pembebasan dan

pembebasan dengan menjalankan penyelidikan 'kira-kira' atau 'bagi

pihak' gerakan-gerakan sosial, dan saya akan menunjukkan bagaimana

pendekatan ini mungkin membawa kepada sangat tunduk mereka. Ia

akan dikatakan bahawa, untuk mengelakkan pengeluaran semula

hubungan kuasa mereka berusaha untuk menentang, amalan

penyelidikan perlu melampaui mod dialektik mengetahui, berlepas dari

andaian subjek / objek pengetahuan, objektif / subjektif penyelidikan

dan dari hierarki antara teori dan amalan. duluan A terdapat dalam

pendekatan penyelidikan pengajian pasca-kolonial, aktivis, dan aneh

yang berusaha untuk mencuba mod pandangan yang mengetahui,

bukannya berdasarkan pemerhatian dan penyertaan, tetapi mendapat

tahu daripada pengalaman rintangan dalam pergerakan sosial: dengan

cara ini tahan amalan menjadi perspektif epistemologi bukannya objek

kajian dan penyelidikan boleh menjadi alat rintangan


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ABSTRACT

Study of social movements needs to consider some basic factors such as

power , knowledge and resistances to create new modes of knowing.

The production of a knowledge with the aims at liberation and

emancipation using some research 'about' or 'on behalf of' social

movements would be criticized. The reproduction of power relations

can be avoided using research practices in order to accept knowing,

regardless the assumptions of the subject/object knowledge, research

and from the hierarchy between theory and procedures. This study

concluded that the resistant practices become an epistemological

perspective rather than an object of study, so research can become a

tool of resistance.

Keywords: epistemology; resistance; squatting

Introduction

In the social or human scientific field, research and theories are usually

organized under the so called “When applying for government and

university research grants, social researchers have to comply with a

number of requirements. One the one hand academics are asked to

pursue scientific research projects that will bring innovative theoretical

insight to the discipline; on the other hand they are expected to produce

results and practical advice for policy-makers. As the attention of

founding committees revolves around the relevance of research projects

for science and policy, academics often research and write with one eye

on academia and the other one on governments, but there seem to be

little awareness on how these requirements embody politics of truth that

confine research practices to specific modes of knowledge. Without

neglecting the importance of engaging in projects that are both

theoretically and policy relevant, working exclusively from an

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academic or policy perspective and audience often entails dismissing

the effects of power exercised by academic modes of knowing on the

social field that is analysed. Ethical committees are supposed to ensure

that the field researched is not harmed through the research process.

However harm is a vague concept, not ease to measure, evaluate and

operationalise. Concerns for the population affected mainly revolve

around the protection of anonymity and confidentiality of sensitive

information. As in a museum, or zoo, researchers may watch, observe

and ask questions, as long as no direct harm is inflicted on the object of

study; however, the process that allows academics to place 'research

objects' within an observational cage remains unquestioned. Besides the

specific methodological tools for social movements studies, both the

role and perspective of the researcher in the struggles taking place are

worth reflection. Although there is much reflection on how the

researcher's standpoint and subjectivity influences the knowledge

produced (Crampton & Elden, 2007; Wray 2002), academics often lack

reflection on the power exercised by their modes of knowledge and

theoretical perspectives on the social movements researched. Most

social movements scholars seem sympathetic with the movements they

study, and aim to produce knowledge for emancipating and

empowering groups struggling for social change. However it will be

questioned to what extent these research practices that aim at producing

social emancipation, still reproduce power relations that allow

academics to exercise power on the reality analysed, thus resulting in

the subjection, rather than the multiplication of practices of resistance.

As all modes of research have political consequences, and all forms of

knowledge exercise power, a relevant question is how to transform

these power relations through the very process of doing research? Or, in

other words, how can research practices become tools of resistance not

only for transforming society, but for subverting the very modes in

which knowledge is produced and discursive formations become truth?


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This paper will explore research practices that go beyond those

traditional approaches that reproduce the scientific dialectic between

object and subject of knowledge, and that aim at subverting the

relations of power that place a hierarchy between theory and praxis,

researchers and researched, and, in social movements studies, between

academics and activists. This paper does not attempt to provide fixed

answers nor solutions. Instead, it configures as an exploration in the

field of epistemological practice, in order to problematise the power

effects of different modes of knowing. The starting point here is the

research project through which these critical questions emerged;

namely, the study of the criminalisation of squatting in the Netherlands.

The resistant collectivities active in squatters movements aim to subvert

the multiple modes of power that govern our societies, and the

production of academic knowledge about movements is one such

modes of power. Thus, when starting this research, it resulted important

to explore possible epistemological practices that are not set up to

produce scientific knowledge about squatting, but that, instead, are

situated at the vantage point of the squatting experience, and are thus

able to contribute in understanding and subverting the relations of

power that movements are resisting. In other words, it has been

necessary to implement research practices that, rather than observing

squatting, would entail looking at the current modes of government

through the experience of those who try to resist them: yet not grabbing

movements' knowledge, but learning from these perspectives how to

know differently. Drawing on Foucault it will be argued that in order to

conduct research that is useful not only for understanding how power

relations work, but also for resisting the relation between power and

knowledge that is exercised through social research, it is necessary to

subvert the rationality and truth formations at stake. In first place this

entailed questioning the truth formations that govern our modes of

thought and unlearning traditional assumptions on objectivity, and

validity of academic research, which are still fixed into the scientific

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dialectic of object and subject of knowledge. In second place this

process led to learning different ways of producing knowledge, and to

do so from the perspective of practices of resistance that are engaged in

problematising power relations and in uncovering their points of

application (Foucault, 1998). Thus, it will be argued that is necessary to

use theoretical and epistemological tools that do not attempt to conduct

research about movements, but that work alongside movements,

learning from the movements’ modes of knowing, and using

movements' experiences as theoretical and epistemological

perspectives. This, not only for avoiding the representation and

repression of resistant practices, but also for using research practices as

tools of resistance.

What is Critical about Critical Methods?

Following Marx’s eleventh thesis on Feuerbach - “The philosophers

have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change

it” (Marx, 1845) - it has been argued that the aim of critical research is

to contribute to social change and political transformation. So called

'critical' research methods have attempted to put this thesis into

practice. 'Critical ethnography', for instance, has often been addressed

as an important method both for researching from within the field of

interest, and attempting to contribute to political change. However, the

main tools used by critical ethnography are those of 'participant

observation'. Throughout this paper both concepts of participation and

of observation will be problematised, and it will be argued that the task

of critical research is not simply to change the world, but, in first place,

to reflect on the how specific ways knowing the world become truth,

and, in second place, to explore different possibilities of knowing the

world. The definition of critical ethnography provided by Jim Thomas

(1992), referenced in most of the related literature, argues that “critical

ethnography is like traditional ethnography with a political aim”

(Thomas, 1992, p.11). This definition is highly problematic since


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traditional ethnographic research did have strong political implication,

as it was used as a source of knowledge aimed at understanding

colonized cultures and to extend colonisation further (Gough, 2008).

The first ethnographic studies addressed the populations, cultures and

histories of colonies within the British Empire, but defined themselves

as unbiased and impartial account of the actual state of affairs.

Affirming that 'critical ethnography is like traditional ethnography with

political aims', seems to dismiss the fact that traditional ethnography

did entail strong political effects and did serve as a tool for social

transformation: namely the governing of colonised and indigenous

populations by Western colonial powers whose aim was explicitly to

understand in order to change, or to know in order to subject, to control,

and to exploit the researched populations. Linda Tuhiwai Smith (2012)

addresses the colonial implications of critical social and

anthropological research on indigenous communities, which, even

when they wave the flag of emancipatory research, still order, code, and

objectify indigenous experiences, thereby imposing Western categories

and modes of knowing: from her perspective “the word itself, research,

is one of the dirtiest words in indigenous world's vocabulary” (Smith,

2012, p.1). However she does not claim that 'research' as such should

be abolished; rather, she considers theory and analyses as important

tools “to plan, strategise, to take greater control over our resistance”

(Smith, 2012, p. 38). Therefore the problem does not lie in research as

such, but in the ways 'proper' research and 'true' knowledge are defined

by scientific (Western, white, male) standards which dismiss and

silence different epistemological possibilities (Denzin et al, 2008).

Thus, it is important to question to what extent so called critical

ethnographic practices had a role in effectively challenging and

subverting traditional colonial discourses. If colonisation is intended as

an ongoing process of grabbing and governing peoples, lives and

knowledge formations, both traditional and critical research methods

have to be de-colonised, and it is necessary to find new languages,

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tools, and modes of thought, for decolonizing theoretical apparatuses

and epistemological devices (Sandoval, 2000). In order to be effectively

'de-colonised' research should not simply aim at producing tools for

'social transformation', but at becoming reflective on the power effects

of the knowledge produced, and at finding different ways of knowing

(Holloway, 1998; Shukaitis et al., 2007). The situated nature of

knowledge has also been extensively discussed by feminist

epistemologies who made explicit the politics of research and 'science'

and questioned the partiality and exclusiveness of truth formations that

shape knowledge and thought (Smith 2005, Wray 2002). Feminist

standpoint epistemologies challenge mainstream systems of research

objectivity and ethics, and questions whose truth, whose knowledge,

from what perspective and for whom is research produced (Harding,

1991). These subversive epistemologies have attempted to produce

alternative ways of knowing, and experimented with modes of research

in which researchers could situate themselves in a position that does not

exercise power upon, while supporting the potentialities of the reality

researched. From these perspectives the call for objectivity is replaced

with an attention of the subjective dimension of the research

experience. As most scholars still value rigorous detachment and

distance, and the formulation of objective and scientific analyses and

results as the main criteria for the production of truth, recurrent

criticism of feminist subjective perspectives questions the extent to

which these voices reproduce the very discourses that oppress them

(Willis, 1977) and to the extent to which voices can claim to hold more

truth than others (Hammersley, 2012). But is it possible to go beyond

the dialectic between subjective and objective modes of knowledge?

These longstanding disputes have been discuused in the Becker and

Gouldner debate, and they revolves around whether it is necessary to

speak about or for the social reality one is analysing and which view

point should be adopted while conducting research (Becker, 1967;

Gouldner, 1968). While Becker (1967) argues, in his article 'Whose


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side are we on?', that the social scientist should hold the perspective of

the oppressed, Gouldner (1968) has argued that this attitude entails the

risk of acting as 'zoo-keeping' researcher, who stands on the side of the

oppressed but keeps it in a cage, as this modes of research do not

provide tools to transform the relations of power that lead to the very

oppression. Hence, the effects of so-called the 'zookeeper' attitudes are

to provide knowledge to understand, to manage and control the

oppressed rather than to address the causes of oppression. In his view,

the role of the researcher is not to give meaning to and make sense of

the life-world of the oppressed practices, but to analyse and intervene in

the causes of oppression. According to Gouldner (1968), academics

must therefore formulate theories that are able to locate the various

perspectives and actors involved within a broader political historical

and cultural context. Despite the relevance of this approach for

avoiding the zoo-keeping of the so called 'other', 'vulnerable' or

'oppressed', Gouldner's argument assumes a clear distinction between

the subject and object of research, the micro and macro levels, and

claims to the maintenance of institutionalized distance between theory

and praxis, thus reproducing classical scientific paradigms, and keeping

the theorist at the centre of the epistemological practice. Moreover,

posing a clear-cut distinction between the powerful and the powerless,

the dominator and the oppressed, silences and dismisses the capacity of

non-academics to take action and challenge the power enacted upon

them, and to grasp them as key forces within the power relations. Thus,

posing oneself in a specific standpoint does not necessarily mean

occluding the focus on the macro dynamics at stake. Rather, the vertical

geometry and hierarchy between macro and micro can be challenged by

looking at how relations of power traverse and resonate within each

body (Deleuze & Guattari, 2004).

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The Methods of the Eye: Research about Social

Movements

Translating the above debate more specifically into social movements

research methods, Becker's approach could be referred to as a 'methods

of the eye', since speaking about/or of the movement entails observing

the movement, its demands, strategies, repertoires of action and

historical cycles from an external point of view (on this perspectives

see among others: McCarthy & Zald, 1977; Kitschelt, 1986; Kriesi et

al., 1992; Giugni et al., 1999; Mcadam et al., 2003). Although these

studies have been very important for understanding general patterns and

common features of various forms of protest through time and space,

they tend to be more popular among academics than in social

movements, as they construct macro-theories and find general patterns

of cause-and-effects relations that seem to be of little interest for social

movements themselves (Juris, 2013). Through the use of qualitative

methods such as 'participant observation', many social movement

scholars position themselves as theorists whose roles are still limited at

using movements as objects of observation, or as a case to test

hypothesis. The researcher becomes an external observer who accesses

the movement, grabs its knowledge and often leaves the scene without

any substantial contribution (Graeber, 2009). Thus, too often social

movements studies are aimed at describing the movement, producing

general theories about movements, and make little effort to reflect on

the the multiple and controversial ethical implications of these

practices. Although researchers are often sympathetic or supporters of

movements struggles, these modes of research produce representations,

discourses and truthformations about movements that more often than

not play into framing, coding and thereby confining the practices

studied. The power/knowledge implications go beyond data collection

and analysis, and extend to the dissemination of the data. Indeed, what I

would refer to as 'the researchers of the eye' tend to claim the necessity

of translating the research results to make them understandable for the


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movement audience (Chatterton, 2008). However, it could be argued

that if academic work needs to be translated, this is frequently more due

to the academic's rather than the activist’s limited scope of

understanding. When translation is needed, this is not because of a

supposed incapacity of activists to understand research results, but

mainly because academic language tends to close itself within the

fortress of discipline-specific jargon. The writing task should aim at

producing a different language rather than translating 'scientific'

research, and at reisisting the way the politics of scientific truth pass

through academic discourse and shape the possibilities of knowing.

Research for Social Movements

An alternative often proposed by critical researchers, instead to

positioning oneself as an external observer of ongoing struggles, is to

conduct research from within, to help movements elaborate their

struggle (Croteau et al., 2005). Researchers often take the role of

speaking for, or in the name of, a given movement. Such research aims

at representing movements to give voice to the struggle, to bring

subjugated voices to the outside. The political goal is to produce

knowledge for the purpose of empowering rather than controlling the

oppressed and marginalized (Brown & Strega, 2005). Feminist

critiques, for instance, often argue that taking the perspective of those at

the bottom of the social hierarchy, of the oppressed and of the

marginalised, is the only way to shed light on the dynamics of power at

stake (Harding & Hintikka, 2003; Lather, 2007). But is it possible that

these very efforts to liberate perpetuate the relations of dominance at

stake (Lather & Lather, 1991, p.16)? What if the so called oppressed

and marginalised already have the capacity to alter the relations of

oppression and do not need to be empowered by the researcher (Juris,

2008)? These questions are intricately interconnected, and highlight

important epistemological, ethical and philosophical dilemmas.

Methods such as Action Research, or Participatory Action Research

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(PAR) place the focus on participation, in order to reduce power acted

upon the reality studied (Selener, 1997). There are multiple paradigms

and tools subsumed under the umbrella term PAR, but the common

particularity lies in the shifting role and definition of the researcher,

who becomes a facilitator, rather than an 'expert', and the process of

research aims at giving power to the power-less. PAR differs from

observational methods in that it does not attempt to reduce the

complexity of reality and experience to mere representation, nor at

making truth claims from an external perspective. Rather the political

task of PAR practitioners is to let the 'researched' participate in the

definition of the research focus, questions and objectives (Kindon et al.,

2007). Such research practices aim at a bottom-up discovery of local,

situated knowledges with methods based on inclusion rather than

extraction, on participation rather than appropriation. These methods,

have often combined feminist criticism with knowledge production,

have put into question the traditional hierarchies and divisions between

theory and practice and led to the acceptance of new modes of research

within diverse academic spheres.

Despite their importance in paving the way for reflexive research

practices, many of the research projects using these methods aim at

including the power-less and voice-less in a participatory process of

empowerment. By claiming to give power to the power-less, and at

discovering the authenticity and truth of silenced voices, these

approaches still use a language and a discourse that tends to position

the researcher as the liberator or the emancipatory force of oppressed

subjects. As discussed above, methods that call for the inclusion of the

powerless, of the subjugated and of the vulnerable tend to reduce the

complexity of power relations to a clearcut distinctions between the

powerful and the powerless, the power holder and the subjected.

Moreover, although participatory methods tend to distance themselves

from speaking 'on behalf of', the aim remains focussed on bringing


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expertise and tools and researching for, thereby failing to break with the

hierarchy between activist and scholar, theory and praxis.

Paradoxically, attempts to represent resistant experiences and to raise

voices imply that the researcher rarely joins the struggles (Kitchin &

Hubbard, 1999, p.196) and, willingly or not, exercises power and acts

upon their modes of knowledges and research practices. Following

Cohen (1985), Kothari (2001) points out that the dynamic of

participation functions as yet another form of 'tyranny' (Cooke, 2001)

where the participants are fed the illusion of having a voice in decision-

making processes that will eventually harm them or serve for their

control.

In other words participatory practices have been criticised for

exercising subtle methods whose effect is to tame the possibility of

resistance, and to conceal relations of power/knowledge and outside

agendas (Kindon et al., 2007).

To summarise, these research techniques involve an approach that

assumes a clear-cut distinction between knowledge and practice, where

the activist is the subject and object of research, and the academic its

eye or voice to the outside: this implies that the researcher is the 'expert'

on other's struggle, and, as such, remains the central source of

knowledge (Chatterton et al., 2010).

Thus, the method of the ‘eye' and ‘voice' both entail a form of

representation: in the former the researcher is an external observer who

analyses the inside world of the movement and, although the

knowledge produced is partial, it often claims that it is universal. While

the force of social movements is often expressed by their intensity and

variety (Chesters & Welsh, 2005) attempting at a general

representation fixes and represses their multiplicity and complexity.

The second approach entails researchers electing themselves as political

representative of movements, representing movements' voices,

speaking on behalf of, or as an emancipatory voice of movements.

Researchers that position themselves as an empowering subject of the

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voice-less, reduce social movements to marginal and vulnerable

populations, and classify political activists as passive subjects, unable

to know, to speak and act for themselves. Therefore both approaches

entail a form of repression: the former by enabling representations that

often produces specific discourses about the practices, thus coding and

controlling the struggle; the latter, by subjectifying the struggle,

speaking on behalf of, and appropriating activists' voices with the

presumption of giving them a voice.

In the collection of essays titled 'Rhyming Hope and History' (2003)

academics conducting social movements research discuss their role as

intellectuals, and their relation to activism. The questions raised relate

to how academics, through the production of their knowledge, can

support social movements. The authors call for closer connections and

collaborations between activists and academics, and for collaborative

practices where academics can learn from social movements,. As Aldon

Morris (2002) claimed at the “Hope and History” conference: "Maybe

we could bring social movement theorists into the real world of social

movements—to struggle and experiment with different tactics and

strategies, to collect data on strategies, to analyse them, and think it all

through [while] out in the field, in the actual heat of the struggle.

Maybe the activists should say [to the theorists], 'Come out here and

let’s see what we can learn together”.

Indeed contemporary social movements and resistant groups articulate,

produce and disseminate critical knowledges in a way that does not

need, and actually does not welcome, the intervention of external

observers, experts or intellectuals willing to represent, code, or organise

their practices. Rather, academics can learn from these different modes

of knowing, and their research practices can serve as an additional tool,

within a multitude of already existing tools. In order to stop observing,

representing or repressing, researchers need to learn from movements

experiences, and research need to be inscribed within the multiplicity of

practices, of methods and epistemologies of the movement itself.


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The Method of the Body: Research along Movements

To the Gramscian distinction between the traditional and organic

intellectual (Gramsci 2010), Foucault adds the concept of the 'specific

intellectual' (Foucault 1980), who does not make universal claims but

works in specific contexts and on particular practices: “The

intellectual's role is no longer to place herself somewhat ahead and to

the side in order to express the stifled truth of the collectivity; theory is

an activity conducted alongside those who struggle for power and not

their illumination” (Foucault & Deleuze, 1977). Thus, the role of the

researcher is not one of the public intellectual who raises the voices of

the movement to a virtual 'outside'. Instead, the 'specific intellectual'

will work in collaboration with movements, and will have a specific

role in singular struggles. Here the position of researchers is immanent

rather than external to the struggle, yet alongside the struggle rather

than at its centre. The body and voice of the researcher relays the

multiplicity of bodies and voices, and the sources of knowledge are

collective research practices rather than an individualised researcher.

In order to avoid claim to universal representation, the role of research

becomes one of bridging singular practices, isolating elements,

understanding how the relations of power resonate traversing these

elements and developing epistemological devices that give attention to

the details and raptures rather than to progress and continuities, and to

points of encounter between different elements rather than teleological

views (Mahon, 1992; Tamboukou, 1999; Deleuze, 2006;). This

perspective implies that, instead of looking for an universal subject that

embodies resistance, or searching for a general model, it becomes

possible to individuate singular and situated practices that operate

within complex relations of power, and that counter their capillary

effects through tactical use and through a reversal of the relations in

which they are embedded.

The aim of these research practices becomes one of producing tools that

inscribe themselves within movement's struggles, to produce forms of

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knowledge that are neither extractive nor inclusive but instead

collaborative ( Brown & Strega, 2005; Shukaitis et al., 2007; Juris,

2013) and multiply the potential for collective political action, rather

than for representation and repression. Following the feminist and

queer approaches, this method can be defined as the 'method of the

body', as research here is not separated from embodied experience, and

theory is not situated on a different level from the affects and desires

involved in the process of research. Here the body of the researcher and

the one of the activist can coexist in a common space of theory and

praxis, and become the starting point of epistemological practices.

From the perspectives of these critiques, Marx's thesis could been

reformulated by arguing that in order to understand the world in first

place, it is necessary to become directly involved in the struggles to

change it. Only then it becomes possible to stop observing, to combine

theory and praxis, and research becomes not only a gaze but also a

mode of resistance.

This approach is mainly used by post-colonial, queer and activist

researchers engaged in autonomous and alter-global politics (Escobar,

1992; Brown and Strega, 2005; Shukaitis et al., 2007; Denzin, 2008;

Graeber, 2009; Browne and Nash, 2010; Smith, 2012; Juris, 2013).

Here the main actors are not conventional movements that seek to gain

power within traditional institutions, but ways of life and political

organisation that, as with squatting, aim to unsettle and transform

relations of power by opening up the possibility of different relations to

emerge. With these research projects activism ''becomes not simply an

object of analysis but a politically engaged mode of research, which

not only generates relevant knowledges, but also potentially constitutes

a form of activism itself ''(Juris, 2013, p. 9). The research aim is to

contribute to rather than to objectify or subjectify the struggles, by

considering movements as active producers of knowledge, and, from

here, learning different modes of knowing.


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An important contribution that aimed at going beyond classical

scientific paradigms and at breaking the dialectic of

objective/subjective research, can be found is Dorothy Smith (2005)

'institutional ethnography': namely, a method of inquiry for mapping

the social relations mediated by texts that organize institutions. Dorothy

Smith (2005) argues that the aim of critical sociology is not to use

social groups and processes to test hypothesis or explicate theories, but

to uncover how relations of power have an effect on the local sites of

action, from an embodied, situated standpoint in the everyday world

(Smith, 2005). This rejects the productions of objective accounts, not in

favour of subjective epistemology, but of reflexive modes of

knowledge, not about people, but for people, where 'for' addresses a

reflexive knowledge of the people (Scholl, 2012).

Similarly, post-colonial practices and research by indigenous

populations have challenged the way the colonised are labelled as

powerless communities 'at the margins' and considered as 'objects',

rather than 'authors' of research, and developed methods that allowed to

conduct research that aims nor at objectifying nor at empowering, but

one that is done by experiencing indigenous conditions and, from here,

problematising the relations of power that traverse these conditions

(Smith, 2002; Brown & Strega, 2005) Throughout her work Linda

Tuhiwai Smith searches for methods and conceptual tools that would

decolonise research practices, namely projects locally conducted by

members of the populations and where the research process has priority

over the research outcomes. The aim indeed is not to produce data

clusters and categories, but to contribute to processes of collective

reflection, and to create relays between already existing knowledges. In

this context indigenous groups are authors and conductors of inquiries

that bridge local and embodied experiences with the global flows of

power (Smith, 2002).

To summarise, while traditional research methods place the researchers

on the outside, seeking 'objective' and 'scientific' analyses about a

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researched population, queer, post-colonial and activist approaches

value embodied experience and reflexive accounts (Motta, 2009).

These epistemological practices offer alternatives to the assumptions

that theory must be derived from a process of abstraction, detached

from everyday struggles. Rather, they considers movements as capable

of producing theory through praxis. From queer, postcolonial and

activists perspectives the aim is to unlearn traditional methods and to

find different tools that contribute not only to the theoretical debate, but

to experiment with different modes of thought. Rather than adhering to

the binary opposition of speaking about, or for a movement, these

radical approaches aim at researching alongside movements, therefore

substituting observations and interviews with collective research

practices and reflections (Henninger & Negri, 2005). Here the entire

body of the researcher becomes entangled with the struggle, not just its

eye or voice: thus the researcher does not merely observe or participate

in the life world of the movement, but movements experiences become

epistemological perspectives.

As discussed above, from a classical scientific academic perspective the

'methods of the body' can be criticised for lack of objectivity, for an

exaggerated bias due to the embodiment of affects and experience, and

for placing too much efforts on the micro, without relevant

understanding of the macro dynamics of power. However, once more,

concepts such as 'objectivity' and 'subjectivity' are directly from the

classical epistemological tradition, the politics and effects of which,

need to be challenged (Smith, 2012) by going beyond the dialectics of

macro and micro, particular and universal, empirical and abstract, and

theory and praxis (Baugh, 1992). Here the viewpoint at stake is not

related to subjectivity versus objectivity, but it seeks to problematise

what sets of conditions produce specific relations, practices and

discursive formations where life is experienced.

Deleuze and Guattari (2004) name haecceity as a method for the

analysing an event in its multiplicity. Haecceity refers to the 'here and


11

now' and assumes that the foreground and the background resonate

within each other, as they are part of a multiple and complex

assemblage that shapes the world. Therefore, embodied practices of

research, do not fail to understand the relation between macro and

micro, as relations of power are understood to circulate transversally

and not vertically, and to resonate in each body and event. By engaging

with these perspectives and methods, going beyond the distinctions

between object and subject of knowledge and between theory and

praxis, it becomes possible to resist and erode the truth formations of

academic research.

The Criminalisation of Squatting in the Netherlands

Squatting, in literal terms, means to occupy a space without the

authorisation of the owner: however, squatting is not just about

trespassing, as squatting functions by making creative use of the places

occupied, transforming the relations of power that traverse these spaces.

The Dutch word for squatting, kraken, refers to the very action of break

opening a private space to which access is prohibited. As a practice,

kraken, is a tool that can be used in a variety of ways: for solving a

housing problem, for creating sites of urban struggle, or for opening

spaces where a variety of practices of resistance can take place: from

organisation of political action to experimenting with different modes

of life, politics and ethics (Sqek, 2012).

In the Netherlands the practice of squatting has been tolerated and

regulated since 1914, when the right to housing was considered to have

priority over the right to property, therefore allowing the occupation of

unused spaces to satisfy housing needs (Uitermark, 2004). In 2010,

after many decades of so called 'regulated tolerance', a new law turned

the occupation of unused properties into a criminal act. The law that

criminalised squatting not only addresses the action of trespassing, but

it specifically addresses the social and political movements that use

squatting as a tool of resistance.

Jurnal Fikrah

11

Despite the relevance of the criminalisation of collective practices of

resistance for both criminology and social movements studies, neither

fields have given much attention to these processes. Indeed social

movements studies that take the perspective of criminalisation mainly

focus on policing protests (Della Porta & Reiter, 1998; Fernandez,

2008; Lovell, 2009). However, as Alberto Melucci (1989) has pointed

out, social movements are not only expression of protest. Protest is an

oppositional episode that does not shed light on the creativity of

movements, on the everyday practices of resistance that shape and

transform the relations of power that movements resist. Movements do

not stand outside power, as pure opposition, but instead, power and

resistance form assemblages of relations that mutually compose each

other. Squatters movements, as with many other resistant groups, enact

modes of politics that go beyond protest and opposition. They

constitute hubs for the production of different social and urban spaces,

of critical knowledges, and of resistant modes of life (Adilkno, 1994;

Uitermark, 2004; Hodkinson & Chatterton, 2006; Martinez & López

2012). Just as squatting does not merely express opposition, the law

that criminalised it is does not only entail repression: it is a complex

process that involves a multiplicity of actors, techniques, and

rationalities, on multiple levels. Here, other less visible, more subtle

strategies are at play, which do not simply repress, but normalise, tame

and conduct resistant practices and latitude, by speeds and affects,

independently of forms and subjects, which belong to another plane. It

is the wolf itself, and the horse, and the child, that cease to be subjects

to become events, in assemblages that are inseparable from an hour, a

season, an atmosphere, an air, a life. The street enters into composition

with the horse, just as the dying rat enters into composition with the air,

and the beast and the full moon enter into composition with each other

[...] Climate, wind, season, hour are not of another nature than the

things, animals, or people that populate them, follow them, sleep and

awaken within them. [...] We are all five o'clock in the evening, or


11

another hour, or rather two hours simultaneously...» (Deleuze &

Guattari, 2004, p.262). and discourses. Moreover the process of

criminalisation is strongly influenced and shaped by squatters' attempts

to counter criminalisation, whether they take place in the streets, in

court, or as the 'hidden transcripts' discussed by James Scott (1990).

These resistant practices constituted a strong capacity for challenging

how the process of criminalisation works, and for subverting its effects

on criminalised movements (Dadusc & Dee, forthcoming). Hence, in

this context, criminalisation is not to be understood as a top-down

process, where those affected are passive subjects with no power of

action: rather, forces of criminalisation and practices of resistance

constitute a complex game of power, an assemblage of forces and

relations that mutually influence each other. Therefore, the relations of

power entailed in criminalisation are neither fixed nor static, but instead

they are in continuous transformation, a transformation that comes from

the possibility, and from the action of, resistance. This implies that the

actors involved in resisting criminalisation entail a reflexivity,

experience, analytical capacities, and modes of knowledge of the

relations in which they are embedded that goes far beyond what can be

grasped by the academic gaze of an outsider.

Learning from Resistance

The practices of resistance that take place through squatting are not

only configured as an antagonistic opposition, nor are they marginal,

oppressed, or 'other' to power. Rather, they traverse the relations in

which they are embedded and problematise their effects. The people

and collectives that are engaged in squatting actively bring attention to

everyday struggles and confront mechanisms of power that exploit,

conduct and produce specific truth formations. These resistant forces

are not external but immanent to relations of power, and aim at

subverting the effects of power by opening up different fields and

possibilities for action and for thought. Thus, these very struggles

Jurnal Fikrah

11

reveal points of rapture and contention which can unmask how power

relations work (Simons, 1995) . Resistant practices by transforming, but

also in unmasking hidden, “normalised”, or taken-for-granted

techniques of power and regimes of truth function as monsters, rather

than models, of different modes of knowledges. Hence, the gaze of

resistances to specific techniques of power enable an understanding of

the sites and modes of operations, mechanisms, points of application

and rationalities of power (Foucault, 1982). As Cadman (2010) has

noted, practices of resistance (such as squatting) operate as

'transactional realities', as points of fracture between the smooth

continuity of the work of power, and the possibility of different modes

of doing things, of becoming, and of knowing. Thus, by learning from

the perspectives of those practices and events that constitute difference

and that challenge the 'normal ordering of things', it is possible to

unmask and question those effects of power that shape our lives and to

problematise how one should constitute oneself as a political, moral and

desiring subject in the Western societies of our time (Foucault, 1990).

On the one hand understanding the mentalities and techniques of the

criminalisation of squatting by aiming at resisting them, gives insight

into how urban machine functions, with its practices of gentrification,

dispossessions, housing policies, real estate speculation, and the

disciplining and normalisation of what differs from the supposed

'normality'. On the other hand, using the methods of the body, brings to

the surface dispositifs of power that not only work on the field of

politics, but that also operate on the level of ethics. Indeed

criminalisation has effects on affects, desires, and bodily experiences

that can only be grasped by experiencing and resisting criminalisation

through one's own body. Thus, the academic’s role is not the one of

representing, but one of inserting oneself into these fields, of becoming

part of resistant practices with her own body, thereby resisting the

effects of power that pass through academic modes of knowledge.

Within this context the traditional boundaries between academic and


16

activist are blurred, because research becomes a practice of resistance

in itself, a relay between radical theory and praxis and, as such, an

additional tool for the existing struggles.

Jurnal Fikrah

17

Conclusion

Drawing on Foucault's conceptualisation of power and resistance this

paper explored how different research methods for social movements

have specific power effects on the reality researched and on the

struggles taking place. In particular it has been argued that, in order to

understand how relations of power work, it in important to use the gaze

of practices of resistance that question and subvert the very relations of

power one is analysing. It has also been questioned how the role and

the standpoint of the researcher shape and affect the knowledge that is

produced. By drawing on multiple research traditions and perspectives,

it has been argued that academics have been engaging in attempt not

only to understand the world, but also to change it. However,

dislocating and acknowledging researchers' standpoints is not enough

for challenging the relations of power entailed in the production of

knowledge, as research methods frequently tend to reproduce the

positivist dialectic between object and subject of knowledge, and

hierarchical relations between theory and praxis, researcher and

researched, academics and activists. Although it might be impossible to

entirely step out of the norms that govern academic modes of thought, it

is important to problematise the effects exercised by academic truth

formations, and to reflect on how to engage in modes of research that

are not only oriented toward universities and governments, but that in

themselves function as practices of resistance. By drawing on the

experience of doing research on the criminalisation of squatting in the

Netherlands, the paper has explored research practices that have been

experimenting with alternative modes of knowledge production, and

that attempted to challenge the relations of power entailed in social

research. In particular, post-colonial, queer and activists approaches

were addressed as techniques that enable research itself to be employed

as a tool for resistance Indeed, these epistemologies neither attempt to

represent a social world nor to empower social movements.


18

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Documents

Basic Factors of Study of Social MovementsKertas kerja ini akan menganalisis hubungan kuasa yang terlibat dalam penyelidikan gerakan sosial, meneroka amalan epistemologi alternatif